World Trade Center: See It Again, For The First Timeby Jonathan David Morrisjdm@readjdm.com

Special to The Libertarian Enterprise

A guy I know told me the other day he doesn't plan on
seeing Oliver Stone's World Trade Center. When I
asked him why, he told me he doesn't feel the need to
"relive" September 11th. I thought this remark was
somewhat unusual.

World Trade Center is about two Port Authority
police officers who were rescued after spending 24
hours pinned beneath the rubble.

Most of usincluding me and the guy I was talking
towatched 9/11 happen from the comfort of our
offices, classrooms, or homes.

I'm not saying you had to be at Ground Zero for 9/11
to affect you. I'm not saying you had to lose someone.
I'm not even saying you had to have worried whether
someone you loved would be lost. All of us were
affected by 9/11even those of us who weren't
directly affected by it.

But if you didn't live through it in the sense that
two guys pinned beneath the rubble lived through it,
then how could World Trade Center possibly
constitute re-living it?

Your whole 9/11 experience revolved around watching
television. Wouldn't the only way to relive your
9/11 be a movie about people watching Fox News?

Maybe I'm just nitpicking here. Obviously, when people
say they don't want to relive September 11th, they're
talking about how they felt that daynot just what
they saw. This makes me wonder if watching it unfold
on live TV has warped our perspective, though.
Generally speaking, not wanting to "relive" 9/11
sounds more like an excuse not to see
World Trade Center than a reason not to see it.

In fact, a lot of the reasons people won't be seeing
this movie sound more like excuses than reasons. Like
the idea that it's "too soon." Or the idea that
Hollywood shouldn't be telling stories about such an
important part of our history.

How could it ever be too soon to tell stories about
something so significant? Mankind has been telling
stories about important events for thousands of years.
Most of that time, we weren't even worried about
storytellers taking artistic liberties. Just take the
Gospels, which differ on small points such as Jesus's
last words and whether he carried his own cross. Do
these differences hurt the story? Of course not. The
lesson prevails through each variation.

The same should be true about September 11th. There
are so many perspectives from which this story could
be told. From inside the Towers. From inside the
Pentagon. Even from inside the classroom where George
Bush was reading to those kids.

When someone tells me they don't want to relive 9/11,
it sounds to me like the only perspective they want to
consider is their own.

They don't want to see the debris clouds from inside
the WTC concourseas seen in World Trade Center.
They don't want to see the struggle aboard the
airplanesas depicted by United 93. All they want
to see is what they remember seeing while they watched
9/11 safely from home five years ago.

The first thing a lot of us said that morning was,
"God, this looks just like a movie." And it's that
very sense of detachmentthe comfort that came with
being able to turn off our televisionsthat some
people don't want to give up.

As far as I'm concerned, this is the wrong reason not
to see World Trade Center. Maybe it would be the
right reason if you were directly affected by
September 11th. That's different. But the rest of us
experienced those attacks secondhand. We never had to
identify with the heroes; we just had to call them
"heroes," feel bad for them, and send their families
money.

World Trade Center will change that. It'll let you
get to the real human heart of this story once and for
all.

Make no mistake: This movie will make you emotional.
You'll have flashbacks the next day. For lack of
better expression, it's the next best thing to having
been at Ground Zero. All I'm saying is, don't think of
this as a deterrent. After all, you probably weren't
at Ground Zero to begin with. The two officers this
movie focuses on were.

You don't owe it to those guysor to anyone, reallyto
see Oliver Stone's new picture. But before you
tell me you don't want to relive September 11th, live
through it againfor the first timethrough the
eyes of two men who survived.

Jonathan David Morris writes from Philadelphia. He can
be reached at jdm@readjdm.com.